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Field Notes of an Ordinary Pastor

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31 TAKEAWAYS FROM THE HUB CONFERENCE 2020

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Here are 31 things I noted down from FIEC’s The Hub Conference this year.

1. Christian ministry is hard. It is hard in the schemes. It is hard in the countryside. It is hard in the nice neighbourhoods.

2. Ministry is hard. Often chaotic. Frequently heart-breaking. It requires graft and sacrifice.

3. More church plants fail than succeed around the world.

4. The biggest danger to the church is often inside the church rather than outside of it.

5. When the going gets tough, people will walk away from you.

6. You come from churches that have problems in them. If you don’t think there are problems, you probably are the problem.

7. Most problems in the church centre around pride.

8. Imagine what the Corinthians would have been saying in their private What’s App group after receiving 1 Corinthians.

9. When there are groups of sinners hanging out – sin is present.

10. People sling mud at you when you are a leader. Mud-slinging comes with the territory.

11. So much of pastoral ministry is putting out relational fires.

12. We have a God who knows our pressures and who we can reach out to for comfort.

13. When we see failure in others, our job is not judge but to encourage them back into the fight.

14. We’ve got to pray for one another.

15. Independent churches have always sought voluntary associations for mutual support, encouragement and accountability.

16. There are approximately 545 million evangelicals worldwide and more than half of them are in Independent Churches.

17. The Lord sees administration as a spiritual gift. Without gifted administrators in the church, nothing gets done.

18. Whatever ministry we are in. Whatever we’re doing. We’ve got to be sure our primary objective and motivation is the honour of God.

19. There is no place for superstars in God’s kingdom. There is nothing in ministry that is beneath you when it comes to serving others.

20. We have no idea what God does with our efforts to please Him. The name of the ‘crap’ gate guy gets a verse in the Bible.

21. If your name is written in blood in the Lamb’s book of life, there is no Tip-Ex on earth that can wipe this out.

22. Tim from 10ofthose has been taught well by the Don of bookselling.

23. “He will hold me fast. He will hold me fast. For my Saviour loves me so. He will hold me fast.”

24. Anxiety/Worry = Over-Concern. It is right to be concerned, but when it dominates your thought-life it rob us of joy and peace.

25. God who made you is nearer to you than you realise through Jesus and He cares for you.

26. “Thanksgiving is good; Thanksliving is better.” (Matthew Henry)

27. Matthew Henry, meditating on the theft of his wallet: “Let me be thankful, first, because he never robbed me before; second, because although he took my purse, he did not take my life; third, because although he took all I possessed, it was not much; and fourth, because it was I who was robbed, not I who robbed.”

28. If you have put your trust in Jesus, you have been saved from the thing that should cause you the most anxiety.

29. 3 Questions to ask each day: 1) Where did I see God’s grace yesterday? (discipline of thankfulness); 2) Where do I need God’s grace today? (discipline of dependence); 3) How can I show God’s grace to others? {discipline of selflessness).

30. Mike Wildsmith led the singing so well helpfully reminding us that “worship is a response to revelation”.

31. This is my favourite conference I go to each year (7th time I’ve been) – just love seeing and talking to young men and women thinking about going into gospel ministry, currently training, or about to go into their first ministry role.

[And in case you missed it, here’s my handout from a seminar I did on ‘Godliness and Ministry’]

GODLINESS AND MINISTRY

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At The Hub Conference I was asked to lead a seminar on ‘Godliness and Ministry: Your people’s greatest need is your personal holiness.’

Download my handout as a pdf

43 TAKEAWAYS FROM THE FIEC LEADERS’ CONFERENCE 2019

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Here are 43 things I noted down from the FIEC Leaders’ Conference this year.

1. It was the best FIEC Leaders’ Conference I’ve been to – came away challenged, encouragement, enthused.

2. Grateful for the precious couple of hours Kate and I got to spend with Ian and Rachel Williamson.

3. Church ministry can bring feeling of doubt (have I done the right thing?), guilt (could I have done more?), and nostalgia (to when it was better).

4. If we want to glorify God, we will work to grow His church, because it is through His church He glorifies Himself.

5. If we minister for our identity, the burden of ministry will become intolerable for us. We minister from our identity.

6. The word officer gifts that Christ gives to the church are about growth numerically (evangelists) and growth in maturity and understanding (pastor-teachers).

7. We won’t want others to serve if we have made ministry our identity because we will want people to be dependent on us.

8. They nailed it with the music this year. Right balance of old hymns and new songs. Plus, the choices of songs/hymns after the messages was on point every time. [Still pondering whether Amazing Grace is a hymn that needed new lyrics added to it and to be sung to a different tune!  Update: Check out this useful thread from Colin Webster about the reworking]

9. A profile of a leader from Deuteronomy 17:14-20: The leader must walk with God; love God’s people; exercise faith; be loyal; not be greedy; be immersed in Scripture; and model obedience.

10. Look for leaders by looking for men committed to the local church and who have proved themselves in the local church.

11. Your calling is to be the world’s expert on your wife!

12. God’s people put a crown on the king and sent him out to the study to learn how to lead by the Word of God being drip fed into his life.

13. To fear the Lord is to so love Him that His frown be your greatest dread and His smile your greatest delight.

14. 3 strategies for making progress: 1) Identify your primary battles; 2) Confront your hidden sins; 3) Trust your gracious Saviour.

15. Don’t let admitting you are a sinner become a substitute for confessing your sins – particularise your sins!

16. The best way of moving forward in the way of Christ is by feeding on the work of Christ.

17. You can fake your relationship with the Lord, but you mustn’t!

18. Brilliant to see previous trainee pastors from Banstead Community Church, guys I’ve met at The Hub Conference, and have my yearly catch up with Wellsy who I was at Bible College with 14 years ago.

19. The role of shepherd wraps together the three distinct offices of prophet, priest, and king. Shepherds feed the sheep nourishing the flock of God with a healthy diet. Shepherds seek the sheep, those weak and injured. Shepherds guard the sheep, protecting and leading the flock of God.

20. It is helpful to spend a third of your time in each area of the threefold ministry of preaching, pastoring, and leading; of preaching/study; 1-2-1 work; and structure/teams/committee. Each of these components are essential.

21. The word of God is more than information. It is the living seed that brings new life and the food that sustains new life. Word of God is the means by which God accomplishes His work in people’s lives.

22. Preaching is more than education. JI Packer: “The proper aim of preaching is to mediate meetings with God.”

23. A Christian sermon is one that has something so distinctly about Jesus Christ that you would be thrown out of the mosque or synagogue for preaching it.

24. Cut pastoral work out and you will kill your preaching. You’ll become a talking head removed from the realities of the lives of the people you preach to.

25. Charles Bridges definition of pastoral work as the personal application of the pulpit ministry to the proper individualities of our people.

26. The local church is where the kingdom is established, displayed and grown.

27. Care about the ministry of the gospel beyond my generation and beyond my geography until Christ returns.

28. You say stupid things and the church survives. When you do it gives the church’s spiritual antibodies a work out.

29. The optimal size of an eldership. Dever says as many elders as you can have. Why would Christ give elders to the church if they were not needed?

30. “You can get it in the bookshop and it is really cheap!” Classic Jonathan Carswell.

31. Interviews at conferences never seem to deliver what I’d hope they would.

32. Spurgeon is unable to write an unedifying paragraph.

33. Unbelief does not bear up well under careful examination.

34. We need emotional intelligence but also organisational intelligence.

35. Four reasons to lose heart from 2 Corinthians 4: 1) False teachers; 2) Our own sin; 3) Unbeliever’s blindness; 4) Suffering.

36. When a leader loses heart the stakes are high.

37. The day you stop marvelling at the mercy of God is the day you stop offering the mercy of God.

38. Longevity in ministry comes from an appreciation of God’s mercy.

39. Never stop telling your own salvation story. If He can save you, He can save others. Keep proclaiming Christ as Lord.

40. Preaching with a view is photoshop fantasy.

41. God puts nobodies in church ministry to show His power.

42. Ministry is dying to save others’ lives. Not in an atoning way. But in an announcement, embodiment, of the atoning way.

43. We do not lose heart in ministry because our end game is not retirement but resurrection.

22 TAKEAWAYS FROM FIEC LONDON LEADERS’ GATHERING

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Here are 22 things I noted down from the FIEC London Leaders’ Gathering which included Jonty Allcock preaching on John 1:1-5 and John Stevens giving a presentation on the opportunities and dangers for Independent Churches today.

1. It’s always great to get together and spend time with other pastors and leaders of churches in London, to hear news of other local churches, and to pray for them.

2. The Word is the great disclosure of God. Jesus is called the Word because God speaks to the world through Him and says this is who I am.

3. In the beginning was the Word. Our world loves new. It is fascinated by the novel. What you need is not something brand new but someone who always was.

4. The Trinity is not a puzzle to solve, an argument to win, an issue to solve, but a glory to behold.

5. A worldview says that matter came before life will prioritise physical over spiritual. The Bible says life came first. From that life physical matter came. Understand this life and you get light, and everything makes sense.

6. In our devotional life we should long for and crave to see more of the glory of this Word. Moses prayed “Show me Your glory!” Just think about all Moses had seen by time you get to Exodus 33. Let’s not coast on the glory we have seen in the past.

7. Let’s be men who preach with the best of our ability, with the help of the Spirit, to show people there is a glory so magnificent.

8. Independency is nothing new. It has deep historical roots. Today, it is the most common church structure for evangelical churches. Half the world’s evangelical churches are independent.

9. In British church life there are approx. 4000 independent churches, with 243,000 attendees, of which 140,000 have theology which is conservative evangelical. Not massive growth since 1980s but held up against massive church decline.

10. What is independency? It is the conviction that local churches are autonomous and self-governing. There is no mediating authority between Christ the Head and the local gathering. This doesn’t stop representatives from churches gathering together, but this gathering has no authority over a local church.

11. Independency in the end tells you very little about a church. Not a brand with a common meaning.

12. What are the opportunities of independency? Freedom to be faithful, to be flexible, to fellowship, to defend freedom for all, and to fail,

13. Independent churches have the freedom to stand firm for the gospel especially at a time when denominations are compromising or have capitulated on primary gospel issues such as in the area of human sexuality.

14. Independency gives freedom to local churches to best structure church life to be faithful to Scripture.

15. Independent churches have the freedom to exercise a principled pragmatism within particular parameters and to adopt a diversity of styles to reach different communities which are increasingly diverse. Churches don’t need to look the same.

16. Local churches are to be in relationship with each other. Independency gives the freedom to choose who you fellowship with and the freedom to refuse to partner with those that deny the gospel.

17. Independency is supportive of freedom of worship (religious pluralism) and freedom of speech. Not just the toleration of evangelicals but heretics and false teachers – to tolerate what we believe is right and what we believe is wrong. It is for a free society and a pure church.

18. It is easy for independent churches to come to an end. If they are not faithful or effective, they will die. They are unlikely to be propped up and kept going.

19. What are the dangers of independency? The danger of isolation, of idiosyncrasy, of infidelity, of inwardness, and of intransigence. FIEC founded to protect against these dangers.

20. There is no guarantee that independent churches will remain faithful. The freedom they have, gives them the freedom to adopt false doctrines. Faithfulness will require good leadership and mature congregations.

21. A reluctance to change can lead to a church becoming irrelevant to the community they are in and fail to seize opportunities.

22. Independent churches must be careful to avoid pride in ourselves but can still be confident in our principles.

41 TAKEAWAYS FROM THE FIEC LEADERS’ CONFERENCE 2018

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Here are 41 things I noted down from the FIEC Leaders’ Conference this year.

1. The Holy Spirit gives power to bear witness, to keep on bearing witness (in the face of opposition), to all people.

2. “Parochialism is always the enemy of the gospel and unchecked we will naturally be parochial” (Wesley). This raises questions about whether our churches reflect the community they are in.

3. The mission of Jesus will be accomplished not because of our hard work, but because of the power of the Holy Spirit. This should give us a humble and a realistic confidence.

4. It is often only when we come to the end of ourselves, overwhelmed, and defeated, that we truly begin to truly rely on the Lord.

5. Pain and disappointment either makes us bitter or better.

6. A broken man is prepared for a valuable ministry because he has been crushed by God’s magnificent holiness and cleaned up by God’s magnificent grace.

7. The quality of your ministry will not be assessed by how many converts you’ve seen.

8. Faithfulness to God means saying hard things, hopefully with tears, and if people won’t accept them it is because the truth blinds them.

9. Three books to read next year: The Preacher’s Catechism, Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor (again), and Magnificent Obsession.

10. There is not a better seller of Christian books than Jonathan Carswell.

11. You can’t talk to people about Jesus if you are not talking to people.

12. Evangelism includes inviting people to church – where else will you meet Jesus? [Pushing back against those who say don’t invite people to church because it’s too alien to them].

13. Continual competition between churches is consumer Christianity.

14. You want people so excited about what they heard about Christ that they talk about Him.

15. Use the Bible. Use prayer. Use the church.  Evangelism can’t be done without these.

16. No human form or power or condition can prevail against God and His Word.

17. Our hope is not in revival but in God.

18. Do you feel weak or crushed? You are in a good place because God gives strength to the weak and the broken.

19. Press on because we have an incomparable and dependable God.

20. A good name for the prayer meeting of the church is the beggars meeting.

21. Not to seek the Lord in prayer is an expression of arrogance and pride.

22. Prayer is like plasticine. It is moulded by something. It is to be moulded by God’s Word.

23. “When we depend upon organizations, we get what organizations can do; when we depend upon education, we get what education can do; when we depend upon man, we get what man can do; but when we depend upon prayer, we get what God can do.” (A. C. Dixon)

24. The evangelical church in the UK is tiny (2-3%). The Bible-centred evangelical church is tinier (0.2-0.4%).

25. FIEC wants to put particular focus on the least reached areas of the UK. Three key areas they want to support, advance, and encourage gospel work in are 1) deprived communities, 2) rural areas, and 3) ethnic minority communities.

26. What we need to have is a long obedience in the same direction.

27. Local churches need to think about how to work together at a local level, regional level, national level, and an international level.

28. FIEC and Co-Mission have put together a video for Christmas called Lift up your eyes. One to check out.

29. For every look at the culture take 10 looks at Christ.

30. Asking people to believe in Jesus is meaningless if they don’t know who Jesus is.

31. People expect us to be weird and unreasonable.

32. Stop seeing threats as threats. See them as opportunities.

33. I must start listening to The Wee Flea Podcast.

34. Enjoyed chatting about how a local church can have a focus on and get involved in world mission with Steve Palframan. His article on the FIEC website about Radstock is worth a read.

35. The new Primer is out. I picked up copies for all the elders at Banstead Community Church.

36. I wish there were more hymns and more familiar songs sung in the times of praise.

37. What makes pastors press on? Only a rock solid confidence in the sovereign hand of God over, in and through your ministry.

38. Disappointments are not signs that God has lost the plot. They’re signs that we do not have the plot.

39. If you walk by sight you see sin city, sin country, very lost people and giants in the land. If you walk by faith what opportunities there are, what fruit to harvest, what gospel potential.

40. It takes a long time to find the many people in the city. So preach and pray, love and stay as Dever would put it.

41. Going to this conference with Kate is great. We’ll be back again in 2019 with Mark Dever and Colin Smith speaking.

MANAGING PEOPLE

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At The Hub Conference I was asked to lead a seminar on ‘Managing People: Church would be okay if it wasn’t for the people.”

Download my handout as a pdf

HOW BELIEFS ABOUT THE SABBATH SHAPE A LOCAL CHURCH

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FIEC-SabbathThe FIEC recently ran an interesting series of articles/interviews with three pastors about how their beliefs about the Sabbath shapes practice in their local churches.

Download all the papers in one pdf HERE.

HOW BELIEFS ABOUT THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT SHAPE A LOCAL CHURCH

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HSThe FIEC recently ran an interesting series of articles/interviews with four pastors about how their beliefs about the work of the Holy Spirit shapes practice in their local churches.

Download all the papers in one pdf HERE.

WHY DIDN’T ANYONE TELL ME?

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HubAt The Hub Conference I was asked to lead a seminar on ‘Why Didn’t Anyone Tell Me?  Lessons of leadership learned the hard way in the first five years of ministry’.

Download my handout as a pdf